Park Crowds

[Beca]

We have been at WDW all week, and OH MY GOODNESS parks are CRAZY!! We have been DVC members for almost 20 years, and have been coming spring break for the past several years, and I have never seen the parks like this, except for Christmas Day.

Our fp return waits have been as high as 30 minutes. Rides like SSE have been as high as a 90 min. wait. I have waited as long as 15 minutes to get into a bathroom at MK, and lines for food are routinely running between 15-30 minutes.

Two days ago, we were at MK and decided we were done with the park earlier than we thought. We had a 6:35 reservation for Tony's and decided we would check in early, and hope for the best. Tony's was running late, so we ended up sitting and waiting for a table for almost two hours. In that time, I saw so many families come in, explain that the park was too busy to stay, and ask to be seated early. When the hostess explained that they were running late, she would then offer the cancel the party's reservation without incurring a charge if that is what they wished. Several families just cancelled their reservation and left. Not sure why they are so crazy this year, but oh my....

 

[abnihon]

I've been looking at wait times and looks crazy busy.
I have friends who are Disney newbies going for the first time next weekend.
I'm scared for them!
I made them FPs and told them which attractions will always have short lines if it's insane.
I hope they don't come away hating Disney...

 

[Klayfish]

Trying not to facial twitch....

 

[uccats97]

Just looked at wait times. Wow!

 

[Beca]

I've been looking at wait times and looks crazy busy.
I have friends who are Disney newbies going for the first time next weekend.
I'm scared for them!
I made them FPs and told them which attractions will always have short lines if it's insane.
I hope they don't come away hating Disney...

Yes, and when we would arrive at one park and notice how crazy it is, we would look at wait times at the other three parks (thinking we might ditch and go to a different park), only to notice that they are ALL crazy!!

We are used to areas of MK being people soup (Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square), but Epcot is people soup as well. We ditched the land boats the other day after a 45 minute wait that only had us about halfway thru the line...the land boats!! SSE has been as high as 75 minutes, and Pirates as high as 115. Ironically, someone told me that yesterday afternoon, they only waited 15 min. In the standby line to meet Anna and Elsa...so weird.

 

[Beca]

We went to Universal earlier iin the week, and it was NOT like this. Super fun, and even though it was crowded, it was not CRAZY!

 

[Beca]

What EPCOT felt like yesterday...


Aww...link won't post...sorry...it was a live feed from Iteland today.

 

[Metalliman98]

In 2009 we did the week right before Easter for our honeymoon. I remember it being crowded but not insane.

For our second and most recent trip, we went 3/4-3/12, and looks like we made a good call. We walked onto Nemo, a 30 minute wait for that is just insane! The only day that was bad was 3/11, we went to DAK and the standby for everest moved glacially, and lines for food were rough too. But that was the start of spring break, so it was to be expected.

Good luck to those who are there over the next four week!

 

[mickey&minnie04]

We have been at WDW all week, and OH MY GOODNESS parks are CRAZY!! We have been DVC members for almost 20 years, and have been coming spring break for the past several years, and I have never seen the parks like this, except for Christmas Day.

Our fp return waits have been as high as 30 minutes. Rides like SSE have been as high as a 90 min. wait. I have waited as long as 15 minutes to get into a bathroom at MK, and lines for food are routinely running between 15-30 minutes.

Two days ago, we were at MK and decided we were done with the park earlier than we thought. We had a 6:35 reservation for Tony's and decided we would check in early, and hope for the best. Tony's was running late, so we ended up sitting and waiting for a table for almost two hours. In that time, I saw so many families come in, explain that the park was too busy to stay, and ask to be seated early. When the hostess explained that they were running late, she would then offer the cancel the party's reservation without incurring a charge if that is what they wished. Several families just cancelled their reservation and left. Not sure why they are so crazy this year, but oh my....

I was there last week and was assured it was early spring break so crowds wouldn't be bad.....yea, right! The fast pass line for 7DMT was out the gate and down the fence at times! Buzz had a line out the building for its fast pass as well! I have never seen a line for fast pass return before!!! It was crazy compare to my other trips!!

 

[Beca]

I was there last week and was assured it was early spring break so crowds wouldn't be bad.....yea, right! The fast pass line for 7DMT was out the gate and down the fence at times! Buzz had a line out the building for its fast pass as well! I have never seen a line for fast pass return before!!! It was crazy compare to my other trips!!

Wow! And, I thought it was just this week! A CM told us there is an Arnold Palmer golf tournament, some car race, and that it is Florida spring break this week. It has also been too cold for swimming, so no one is at the resorts or Blizzard Beach. But, maybe people are just traveling more...who knows?!

What's really crazy is that in spring breaks past, the parks weren't this crazy, and they closed later. I temember some spring breaks where EMH meant MK closed at 2 AM...not anymore.

 

[tsme]

We don't have spring break until the week after Easter. Those who have spring break now, do y'all not get a week off for Easter? Just curious.

 

[Amanda Hall]

Hmmmm. We are going the first week of April. We are normally go the week after Thanksgiving. I am a bit worried.

 

[eastendlights]

Wow! And, I thought it was just this week! A CM told us there is an Arnold Palmer golf tournament, some car race, and that it is Florida spring break this week. It has also been too cold for swimming, so no one is at the resorts or Blizzard Beach. But, maybe people are just traveling more...who knows?!

What's really crazy is that in spring breaks past, the parks weren't this crazy, and they closed later. I temember some spring breaks where EMH meant MK closed at 2 AM...not anymore.

That is really the crux of the matter. We were there 2/24 to 3/8-most days predicted to be low to moderate crowds-it was the most crowded we have ever seen it by far for this time of year-equal to Easter week. The big difference, as it has been pointed out, are the much shorter park hours. That is what is making it much worse.

 

[Family B]

We have been a few times during Spring Break. I think the crowds all depend on where Easter hits and the impact that has on the Spring Break Schedule. The years where Easter is later the crowds spread out more. But add into this that this year Easter is I believe 1 weekend before the latest it could be, you then get the schools that shifted their Spring Break forward in March so that they don't have two breaks back to back. I'm not exactly sure how far they back they look at historical trends for Easter, but to get the feel for how busy March/April would be you would have to look at a year that Easter fell late in April and then I would look at the impact of the increased crowds on a week that isn't impact by a Holiday shift to determine if how the overall crowd increase is being impacted by the shift in Spring Break. If I was guessing, this week and next will probably be the busiest weeks of Spring Break, there will be some type of a dip in crowds and then it will shift back up the week before Easter. Our school keeps the same Spring Break week regardless of where Easter is. But we also get out typically before Memorial Day (if we have no weather events.) Shifting the break due to later Easter doesn't make sense. It will be interesting to see what the analysis shows after Breaks are over.

 

[twodogs]

And as OP said, Water Parks are CLOSED and pools are not an option due to cold temps, so ALL of those people that would be at those parks and at the resorts were in the 4 main parks, making crowds that much worse. We left last night, and it was truly insane and not fun, even with the best of planning. I will NEVER go at this time again. It was not worth it. I assume that the Water Parks and Pools take a significant load off the main parks at Spring Break typically, but not this week...

 

[NMAmy]

We were there last week, 3/4-3/12, and thought it was quite reasonable. I did see the return fast pass for Buzz when it was really long but I think the ride had been down and we only saw it like that the one time. We were pretty sure it was going to start getting busy on Saturday, 3/11, so we just spent the day at our resort.

It seemed like there were a lot of people milling around at times (particularly in Epcot) but the waits did not seem particularly long like they were on President's Day week and Mardi Gras (and apparently this week, too!). Sorry you've hit the crowds, OP.

 

[LilyWDW]

It's the start of Spring Break season. I work at a family destination in another part of the country and we have seen a definite uptick in attendance... and our schools are not even on break yet. Lots of people from other states coming in so people are traveling.

 

[Beca]

We do not get a week off for Easyer...only one day. We are at HS today, and the walking crowds seem less, but lines are long....80 min. standby for Star Tours.

 

[4HOLIDAYS]

I think the hours are shorter as well. We go lots of years around the 8th as it is my son's birthday. We are not RD people. We like the late nights and not only are there no longer the 3 hr emh, the reg hours seem to be always an hour or 2 earlier. We used to enjoy spring break especially beacuse of that. Sleep late, pool, mini golf, movies in afternoom then to parks for dinner and to close it down at 2/3 am. That was fun!

 

[edk35]

I think it is getting to the point that there are NO low crowd times anymore. I think it will only get worse with the opening of Avatar.